First, thank you for providing feedback on my thinking. I hope what I write below doesn't seem like I am overlooking the points you are making; if they do let me know, i'll try to address them.
Let me see if I can be more specific here:
1) Gender (short for the socially prescribed gender roles in a society with which an individual affiliates) and sex (the genetic basis upon which biological procreation is possible) are distinct
2) Gender and sex are not un-related
3) Gender is strongly influenced by sex
4) Gender is not always determined by sex
Therefore
5) It is therefore important to distinguish between an individual's sex and an individual's gender.
1 is the only thing I think is off, in that it could be said better. Gender and Sex have differences. I think distinct is a word that to me makes them seem more different than they are. Others might take it differently though.
That said, there was a north American native tribe where planting was done by men because men collected the food; another where planting was done by women because women gathered from the fields. Both were open to allowing people to identify with either gendered role.
Those are roles and is not the same as what I was talking about. What you just described are mainly socially constructed if not all socially.
Thus a man with more testosterone in the first society would be more likely to plant fields; a man with more testosterone in the second would be less likely to plant fields. Biology directs people toward or away from socially prescribed gender roles; but it rarely determines what those gender roles must be. On the other hand, there are typicality aspects of gender roles that are fairly consistent between cultures: for example, it is typical of men to dominate and subjugate women. That something is natural or common does not make it good or right.
I think this is wrong from the start. A man with more or less would not matter. Once he was labeled as a man, his individual traits would matter little. Its not that a man with more becomes more likely to do x. Its that men are more likely to do x. I imagine that your argument is that because men have more testosterone than women, that more testosterone drives them to do x, but that is wrong.
Once someone is labeled as male or female, society would put pressure on them to do x or y.
That said, I was NOT talking about the individual level: I was talking about how foundational myths in a society work through the ordering logics of a society to then be embraced by people differently. Thus the example of the masculine nurse, who still nurses using a feminine logic.
Okay.
Notice how you've used the passive voice to overlook the fact that YOU are the one making this argument? Is JP appealing to authority when he gives you these words? He is, I assure you, relying on his the authority of a professor of psychology from a middle-ranked university.
I am not making this argument. The archetypal idea that female is chaos was around long before Peterson. You can look at the Greeks for this.
In their mythology, Chaos is where life comes from. The gods were created from Chaos. Because women create life, and life comes from Chaos, you can see the archetype throughout their mythology.
As for his authority from a middle-ranked university, I see this as pointless. I would also say, that if you want to pick at that, then you need to explain how he was a professor at Harvard and his current position at the University of Toronto. His current school is ranked in the top 20-30 in the world.
Don't use the passive voice, it hides who is doing the arguing, and takes for granted that the argument is a truth from God.
It does not hide it. For some reason, you seem to believe that what was said was his idea, and that would be incorrect.
I don't mean to badger you on a simple turn of phrase, but this passive voice is essential to understanding the problem with your next quote:
If you think I have made a problem, and you explain it, then I will listen. I don't remember having discussions with you before, but, you seem to be willing to explain why you disagree which is not common here. Me attacking you would go against my self interest of wanting a discussion. No worries there.
As for the "says who", it comes from different places. The Greeks were already brought up, which means the Romans have to be included as well. Jung also is someone that went into this.
But, the modern use of Chaos is different than the way Peterson seems to use it. Chaos is the unknown, the void, the non formed. The problem is that people see Chaos as the destructive alone which is wrong. Destruction is part of chaos, but, its not its only part, or even its main part. That is not my opinion.
Says who? According to JP: The typial founding mythos of western societies as they evolve into monotheistic systems of patriarchy. But without a specific "who" here it's just "god says."
I believe this was addressed above, but, if not let me know.
I will bet you anything that a matriarchial system does NOT equate femininity with chaos; but rather equates chaos with masuclinity. Hell, I bet many women don't take for tranted that women are the unknowable sea to be plundered and explored.
Just as individuals can be different from the average, archetypes can as well. I have never come close to saying that the typical is the always. Anyone that does that would be wrong. Its also wrong to say that there is not an archetype.
Again though, I want to emphasize that Chaos should not be seen as inherently negative, just as Order should not be seen as inherently positive.
See how you jumped from the individual sexual relation to gendered norms to a much higher level of analysis, namely social foundational myths? You've skipped the social, and you've made no mention of the fact that societies filled with people of both sexes, are part of the 'gendered' sway between masculine and feminine founding myths.
I'm trying to speak in generalities as that is the foundation of what we are talking about when discussing archetypes. If the archetype of Chaos is feminine, and you have too much Chaos, then you need to move toward Order which would be masculine. That does not mean that individuals need to be more masculine and less feminine.
JP turns what is obvious and trivial anthropology into psychology; wrongly assumes that the individual in her or his sex is somehow a representative of the founding myth - women are all somehow embodiment of chaos and men embodiment of order - when that's about as rational a position to take as women women are all short and men are all tall.
Can you source this? I have not seen that, but, I am not someone that watches most of what he puts out.
Yes, at the edges the differences in the center lead to large differences in numbers of outliers; but even between cultures the average Asian man is significantly shorter than the average Nordic woman.
I do not agree that would be the logical conclusion of his position. That said, the average Asian man is taller than the average Asian woman. Sex and Gender are dimorphic. Its not unreasonable to think that groups will diverge.
Yet JP would have us believe that something that varies significantly more than height between cultures - Hofstede's factor of "uncertainty avoidance" - is 1) the such an important aspect of society that one needs a whole book to cure it, 2) not worth mentioning that there are many other aspects of culture, and may other moral foundations 3) creating the impression in followers minds (see your statements) that since gender is highly related to sex, and gender is related to chaos/order in myth, sex determines connection with chaos/order.
What do you think he means when he says Chaos? What do you think is implicit there?
Take this critique...
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...rdan-peterson-s-flimsy-philosophy-life?page=1
Peterson’s subtitle is “An Antidote to Chaos”, and the point of his rules is to help people to achieve order. “Order is where the people around you act according to well-understood social norms, and remain predictable and cooperative.” It is “explored territory.” “Chaos, by contrast, is where—or when—something unexpected happens.” It is “all those things and situations we neither know nor understand.” Without justification, he says that order is symbolically masculine while chaos is feminine. Both chaos and order are part of Being in his subjective sense, so they belong to experience of reality rather than to reality itself.
Chaos is not the destructive thing that people believe he is talking about.
That's fair. It's more like choosing between too much and too little exercise. Marathon runners give themselves mild heart attacks and die a little earlier because they run so much.
Yep. Doing things to extremes can have negative side effects. Sometimes you have to do that, but, being aware of the costs/benefits is useful. Shaving a few years off your life might be worth it if you live a life that was worth living.
Bacon.
So JP is arguing "you guys, I know you don't exercise enough; but look at those health nuts, some of them are exercising TOO MUCH - watch out!"
I would imagine partly. He seems to believe that many people have gone to extremes and they are suffering. He has talked about multiple times where people have come up to him saying that his simple rules have improved their lives. How much of that is true I don't know, but, I think its very likely.
I grew up in a very poor area. The people around me were both victims of circumstance as well as self inflecting. That world was Chaos as well as chaos. The chaos part was the crime, violence, and all other destructive things. The Chaos was that people did not know how to get themselves out of that. The pathway to them was Unknown.
I have not read his book, and I doubt I will given how much I dislike reading vs other things. But, I would imagine that his book is for the people that have gotten to a point where they exist in too much of an unknown and do not have enough order. He is a college professor and that current culture is what he exists in.
Thank you for taking the time to make your post and have a real discussion.